December 5, 2018

Financial Times 2018 MBA Rankings for the Americas, Asia-Pacific Regions

This week, for the second time ever, the Financial Times published MBA rankings simultaneously for the Americas and Asia-Pacific alongside the European tables. On Monday, we shared FT’s ranking of the best European business schools of 2018.

Today, we’re sharing a snapshot of FT’s top-ranked schools in Asia and the Americas. This list of the best b-schools in those regions is compiled based on the Financial Times‘s rankings of individual programs—full-time MBA, EMBA, Master’s in Management, and executive education. The tables use the same methodology as for Europe. However, placings for the Americas do not include the MiM as too few schools participate.

Top Ten Business Schools: Americas

Wharton School

MIT Sloan School of Management

Columbia Business School

Chicago Booth School of Business

Michigan Ross School of Business

UCLA Anderson School of Management

Duke Fuqua School of Business

Washington University: Olin Business School

Stanford Graduate School of Business

Harvard Business School

Top Ten Business Schools: Asia-Pacific

Antai College of Economics and Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University

CEIBS

National University of Singapore Business School

IIM Ahmedabad

HKUST Business School

Singapore Management University: Lee Kong Chian

Nanyang Business School, NTU Singapore

IIM Bangalore

University of Hong Kong

Tongji University School of Economics and Management

“The biggest climbers since last year’s inaugural Americas list are not those that rely on the full-time MBA, but those business schools that have proved adept at providing courses that fit in with student demands for greater flexibility in the way they learn,” explains the FT’s Jonathan Moules.

Most noteworthy, Washington University’s Olin Business School cracked the top ten this year. Olin jumped nine places—taking it from 17th in 2017 to eighth place in 2018. The FT explains the move is based on the strength of its EMBA program.

Stanford Graduate School of Business, meanwhile, ranks ninth in the Americas due to the simple fact it does not offer a part-time EMBA program. Nonetheless, Stanford GSB remains at the top of FT’s global MBA ranking this year. Harvard Business School is similarly dinged because it doesn’t offer an EMBA alternative.

“There are success stories in business education in the Americas, despite the difficult US market for full-time two-year MBA programmes,” Moules notes. For this reason, he adds, “The winners are those that follow the business rules that it always helps to be alert to changes in a market and adapt to the inevitable shifts in consumer tastes.”

You can read all of the details about this year’s best Asian and American business schools on the Financial Timeswebsite.